Climate Change, this is just the beginning. IPCC: more catastrophes ahead

Gabriele Bonafede 9 Agosto 2021 3 min read

The strongest warning yet from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about climate change. It is man-made and we have little time to avoid global catastrophe

by Gabriele Bonafede

Never the IPCC has been clearer: for what concerns climate change, time is running out faster and faster. Climate scientists are 100% sure that the current phase of global warming is man-made. It is clear too, that extreme weather conditions are increasing in number and magnitude all over the world.

The horrific scenes of apocalyptic fires in different parts of the world have been largely forecasted. They repeat themselves every year with increasing destructive power. In January 2020 Australia was ravaged by horrific fires, California and large strands of US, Russia and Canada too.

Currently, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, all over the Mediterranean we are now witnessing the worst summer fires ever. Two tweet with shocking videos about fires in Greece (here and here) have gone viral.

Flooding in Europe, Asia and virtually every continent, is escalating every year to unimaginable amplitudes. These are climate change catastrophes never seen until a few years ago. Ice caps are melting, oceans are rising, hurricanes, storms and fires are increasingly destructive.

In its latest report (here) the IPCC is fundamentally saying that current catastrophes are just the beginning. The next few years are likely to be worse. Future generations can survive a catastrophic climate change only if humanity as a whole start acting now.

Awareness about climate change, the biggest problem

Yet, the main problem is awareness. In a world dominated by selfish thinking amid a rekindling of nationalistic geopolitics, climate change remains in the background. News of horrific fires and storms keep people interested while they occur. Afterwards, when everything goes back to normal, it then becomes a situation of blaming one another.

In nearly every democracy, voters continue to give credit to politicians having little or no interest in tackling climate change. In dictatorships or quasi-dictatorships, the situation is worse still. Major contributors to the climate change catastrophe, such as China and Russia, are run by authoritarian and undemocratic governments. They pay little or no attention to protect their citizens from fires and flooding even while catastrophes occur. There is no formal structures to hold them to account nor to make them and their populations aware of climate change.

It is similar all over the world, on all continents, including the so-called civilized Europe. In the UK, a bigot and anti-science government is paying only lip service to climate change problems, in fact proposing economic policies doomed to worsen climate change and its impacts – such as forming agreements with distant trading partners instead of nearby Europe.

Far right movements in other European countries (Italy, Spain, France, etc.) continue to deny climate change effects and promulgate intensive propaganda against environment activists.

The IPPC report provides a strong scientific base to start a really pervasive awareness campaign about climate change. Hoping that widespread awareness will not come too late via new and unchecked (and experienced) catastrophes for current and new generations.

Here, the CBC on IPCC report of August 2021. “Climate change is a fact already happening”.